Seven campers were airlifted to safety on the NSW south coast on Sunday as properties around Port Macquarie on the mid-north coast flooded.
Ms Gillard said it was imperative people kept out of floodwaters.
‘Water is a dangerous thing. Deceptively dangerous. Even very low levels of water, if it’s fast moving, can sweep people away,’ the prime minister told reporters in Canberra on Sunday.
She said it was heartbreaking to hear of the death of Luke O’Neill, 17, who was swept into a drainpipe on Friday as he was collecting golf balls in waist-deep water in the town of Kew, south of Port Macquarie.
‘(He was) doing something I think we can all imagine a 17-year-old and his mates doing, going after golf balls in floodwaters, but such a dangerous thing,’ Ms Gillard said.
Early on Saturday afternoon, the body of a man was found in his submerged car on a flooded road at Mylneford, about 20km northwest of Grafton.
No requests for federal assistance had yet been made, Ms Gillard said.
‘But if any requests come in for assistance, then we will meet them as quickly as possible and with all human endeavours to do everything that’s asked for,’ she said.
Source: Sky News Australia
Picture: The Guardian